


Sweet like Lemonade

by Potato_Alchemist



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mentions of HIV, Mutual Pining, Protective Siblings, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 15:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15888741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potato_Alchemist/pseuds/Potato_Alchemist
Summary: Life never ended up being what Link expected. Though, some days were stranger than others. Like when he got a text from someone at his school, insulting him and asking for help on math homework.





	Sweet like Lemonade

It was on a Monday in January when Howard Link got a text from an unknown number.

_Hey, weird question: have you taken trig?_

Link frowned at his phone, thumbs hovering over the keys as he thought about responding. This person already had his number and Link was curious as to how they had gotten it.

_May I ask who this is?_

He had pressed the send button before he could delete the message, fingers driven by the time Allen told him to do something stupid. Before Link could wonder if maybe this all had something to do with Allen, he got a response.

_oh sorry. I found your number on a bathroom stall at school and figured this was worth a shot. I can ask someone else?_

Link found his fingers typing quickly before he even finished reading the message

_Why didn’t you capitalize the first letter of your text? Why did you put a question mark there?_

As Link waited for a response, he looked up at his ceiling and reminded himself to lecture Allen later about putting his phone number in odd places.

_lol okay Emily Post chill the fuck out_

Taking a deep breath and feeling the cold air sting his nostrils, Link threw his phone onto his bed and stormed out of his room.

“Allen Walker,” he yelled on his way to the kitchen.

“Yeah?” Allen asked, crumbs from the cupcake in his mouth falling onto his lips.

Link slammed his hands on the countertop to get Allen to stop looking at the cupcake so lovingly, and look at the disappointment on his face. “Do I really need to tell you not to put people’s numbers on bathroom walls?”

Allen set the cupcake on the counter, chocolate crumbs spilling onto the previously clean surface and adding fuel to the fire of Link’s displeasure. Allen hummed for a few moments, staring at Link and biting at the tip of his tongue. “Oh, yeah,” he said, too excited for Link’s liking. And then he smiled. “Lavi dared me to and it was my number. What are you so worried about?”

“Allen,” Link began, steadying his voice as he pressed his hands harder into the counter, “it was my number, and a stranger with horrible manners and grammar wants my help with math homework.”

“Oh, I guess that eight did kind of look like a nine,” Allen said voice slowing as a smirk formed on his lips. “Keep texting this stranger and see what happens. And at the very least, help him with his homework.” He picked up the cupcake, fingers tapping against the end of the wrapper. “And while you’re at it, can you help me with my homework, too?”

“Fine. But you’re doing the dishes tonight.”

Allen saluted him, frosting catching at the ends of his hair.

“Disgusting,” Link commented, walking away.

If Allen responded, Link didn’t hear it. He was too busy staring at the several text messages covering his screen.

_Emily?_

_Miss Post!?_

_Seriously i really need help_

_please?????????_

Few times in his life had anyone been so eager to contact him and despite that it was for homework help, Link felt an odd feeling in his heart. One that might have held a pleasant quality to it, but was too faint for Link to know for sure.

It slipped away as Link picked his phone back up.

_What is it that you need help with?_

While he waited for a response, he grabbed his history textbook and his highlighter before joining Allen at the kitchen counter.

As soon as he set his things down, a new text message popped up.

_vectors everything about vectors_

“Same,” Allen said.

“Alright.” Link picked up his phone and began typing as he spoke the same words to Allen. “Mr. Lee is smart, but he’s not the best teacher because he goes off on tangents. So, learning from him is difficult if the material is not straightforward.” Link paused when his eyes darted up and he saw the column of texts that had been sent to him. That feeling returned, stronger as it trickled through his heart, catching him off guard, before disappearing again. Link returned his eyes to his keyboard and continued typing. “The trigonometry textbook is horribly written, so it isn’t much help. However, I found several good resources I can send you.”

Moments after Link’s thumb had popped off the send button, his phone was yanked from his grasp.

“Ah, so that’s what you were looking at.” Allen’s voice held a soothing, rhythmic quality to it that had Link forgetting about the contents of Allen’s statement until the soft echo of Allen’s voice faded from his mind.

“I was only looking there because it’s a wall of white bubbles and hard to miss,” Link said, picking up his highlighter and flipping open his textbook like he wasn’t thinking about what his stranger might think of him or wondering why he cared.

* * *

 

After school the next day, Link was sitting on the cold windowsill, watching the rain pour down in sheets onto the pavement, onto Allen and Lavi as they kissed and held each other close. The sky was too cloudy and they were too far away, but they appeared to be swaying slowly to a melody shared between them and no one else.

They lived in a safe neighborhood, and Lavi was with Allen, but Link worried that if he looked away, they would be back somewhere where they got in trouble for going outside and he would have to watch the reckless way Allen used to handle his own life.

He was worried that if he looked away, it would all disappear. Their soft beds, their warm clothes, being cared for like they mattered, the happiness in Allen’s eyes that was beginning to overtake the sadness instead of only masking it.

As Allen and Lavi began to make their way inside the building, Link breathed out a soft sigh and leaned his head against the wall. When the front door opened, his eyes began to wander towards the hall, but they stopped when they caught light shining from his phone screen.

The door clicking shut drew Link’s eyes back to his and Allen’s room door. “Are you going to change?” he asked, standing up.

The dryer door popped open. “Yeah,” Allen said, voice muffled by his clothes as he took them off. A few loud sounds later, the dryer was humming.

Link looked at the wall in front of him when Allen’s footsteps shuffled into their room. Though Link could still see Allen’s naked body as he rummaged through the closet, he couldn’t see the faded scars on Allen’s pale skin that caused a shivery ache at the base of his spine.

Once Allen was dressed in his pajamas and had placed a hand towel over his wet hair, he got on his bed. “So cold,” he mumbled, pulling the blanket up to his nose.

“You’ll warm up soon,” Link said, walking over to his bed and picking up his phone.

_you shouldnt end a sentence with a preposition Emily_

Link glanced up at the previous texts as he let himself fall onto his bed with a soft bounce.

_Is this about yesterday?_

While he waited for a response, he looked over at Allen and saw that the blanket had fallen off his face, revealing a smirk.

“Is that your stranger?”

“He is not _my_ —” Link stopped, mouth still open, when he saw movement on his phone.

_yeah im about a day late but you ended a sentence with a preposition and i expect more from someone who was correcting my grammar_

As he responded, he heard Allen chuckling. “Okay, well, you seem really interested in talking to him.”

_Your grammar is still atrocious and ending a sentence with a preposition is fine if it's not in a formal paper._

“I’m correcting him,” Link said, eyes moving towards Allen, but snapped back to his phone when he saw there was already a response.

_awwww now i feel all sad because youre not putting effort into this_

Link felt a rush of that same feeling in his heart as he stared at the message. After a few moments of wondering what to say and wondering what that feeling meant, he replied, fingers shaking slightly over the keys.

_Please repeat that with actual punctuation._

“Still correcting him?” Allen asked, moving towards Link.

“Yes.”

As Allen sat next to him, cold and wet towel falling on his shirt and leaving goosebumps on his skin as his clothing soaked up the water, a text message popped up on the screen.

_haha fine: I'm sad because you're not putting effort into this._

“Oh, you’re actually correcting him.”

_Why don't you do that all the time?_

Link rested his wrist on his leg, thumb still hovering above the send button, and looked at Allen, who was frowning. “Yes.”

“But—” Allen’s nose wrinkled, “—why?” Before Link could respond, Allen’s eyes darted towards his phone and a warm smile spread across his face. “Oh, that’s actually kind of sweet in a weird way.”

Frowning as his heart raced for no reason, Link brought his phone back to where he could see it.

_Because, my dear Emily, if I did that, I wouldn't be able to mess with you._

Link was unsure if it was excitement or nervousness bubbling in his stomach, but he didn’t see a reason for either.

“Respond already,” Allen whined, poking at Link’s shoulder sharply.

_Okay, Edwin Post._

“Aw, you just married him.”

An odd noise escaped Link’s throat as he dropped his phone, hearing it hit him in the leg. Though, he was too caught up in trying to figure out why he cared to feel anything other than the way his mind was churning.

“Are you going to die?”

Before responding, Link breathed out, warm, humid air filling his mouth. “No, I’m fine,” he said, looking at Allen, who was staring at his phone as he reached for it.

Allen’s knuckles slid across Link’s legs as he picked up the phone. After a few seconds of scrolling, he smiled. “You know, I didn’t realize this yesterday, but he said he could ask someone else, and after a few messages, he was pretty desperate for you to help him.” Allen dropped Link’s phone onto the bed as he stood up and snatched the towel from Link’s shoulder. “Anyways,” he said, sauntering back to his bed, “seems like he’s trying to find reasons to talk to you.”

Link watched Allen slip back under the covers of his own bed. “Why would he do that?”

“I’ll let you figure that one out yourself. I can’t tell you everything, Link.,” Allen said. His voice was filled with the same childish smugness it had been when he said the same thing to Link five years ago. On Link’s first day in foster care after Link asked why Allen was so angry. Back then, the answer had come far too quickly and had been far too painful for Link’s sheltered upbringing to have prepared him for.

He knew thinking about it would have made him feel sick had it not been for the smile on Allen’s face and how relaxed Allen looked as he nestled himself beneath the blanket.

* * *

 

Over the weekend, Link became more familiar with what his lockscreen looked like when he didn’t have any text messages. He told himself he didn’t care, that he only wanted to make sure Allen didn’t need anything, that he wanted to know what time it was. But a quick glance at one of the other clocks in the apartment, or a longer glance at Mana and Allen, who had been home as much as he had, reminded him he was lying to himself.

But he didn’t understand his real answer anyhow.

Monday came and Link was too aware that the person who called him Emily was walking in the same hallways, potentially in the same classes, or could have been sitting next to him.

As he walked down the hallway to lunch, Link was too busy glancing around to notice someone was walking towards him until he ran right into a hard wall of muscle and the smell of cigarette smoke burned his lungs. He pulled back, apologizing as his eyes travelled up the white shirt and he tilted his head back until he was staring at Tyki’s smiling face.

“No, it’s fine. I was actually looking for you anyway.”

Link took a step back to alleviate the ache in his neck from straining to look up. That was when he noticed the pen Tyki was twirling between his fingers.

“Why?” Link asked, watching the movements of the pen and the flicks of Tyki’s long fingers.

“Because I’m inviting you to my pre-Valentine’s day, hookup party.”

Droplets of spit flew into Link’s lungs from his sharp inhale. He puffed out coughs into his sleeve as he glanced between Tyki and all the people who had stopped in the hallway to stare.

“Can I have your hand or a piece of paper so I can write down the gate code?”

Link cleared his throat one last time as he straightened up and put his hand out. Tyki’s warm thumb pressed into the heel of his hand as the pen glided along his palm, leaving Link’s skin tingling uncomfortably.

“And I’m sure you know where I live,” Tyki said, smirking down at Link as he let go of his hand. A moment later, he was walking away, calling down the hall for someone else’s attention.

Link looked around as the eyes of the people who had been watching him moved down the hall with Tyki to watch whoever Tyki was inviting next. When he turned around to look back farther, he saw that Tyki’s hand was now wrapped around Tokusa’s while Tokusa laughed at something he had said.

And then Tokusa glanced up, eyes locking with Link’s. He offered him a soft smile and a small wave with his free hand. It was gone quicker than it should have been for something so gentle, and Tokusa returned to laughing with Tyki.

They weren’t friends and they never had been, but they had been in a few foster homes together, shared food with each other, talked quietly when they both felt too alone.

Every time they had these passing, non-verbal interactions in the hall, Link felt warm inside and he smiled even when there was no one to share that smile with.

* * *

 

 Tokusa groaned as he buried his face in his pillow, muffling the sound. When his lungs were completely empty of air, he sat up and breathed in before sighing out the air again.

He sat there, on his knees, continuously taking in deep breathes and sighing them out until he was dizzy and Madarao was standing in his doorway, glaring.

“What is wrong with you?”

“He’s…” Tokusa closed his eyes against the wave of dizziness passing through his head. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, opening his eyes as it passed. “He’s so hot and he barely notices me.” When the only reaction Tokusa got was a slight softening of Madarao’s expression, he collapsed back onto his bed, face smothered into his pillow.

“Tokusa, he’s not telepathic. You can’t just smile at him and expect him to get what you’re thinking.”

Every breath Tokusa exhaled into the pillow left it hot against his face for a few moments.

“Stop hyperventilating into your pillow,” Madarao said, feet padding along the carpet. The bed shifted when he sat down.

Tokusa sat up, wiping the spit off his lips with the back of his hand and taking in a deep breath of the fresh cool air with his nose. “I was sighing,” he corrected, sliding down the bed until his legs hung off the edge and he was sitting next to Madarao. “You going?” he asked, holding his hand in front of Madarao’s face and looking at him.

“No.” Madarao reached into his pocket. “But I figured you would wash that off before you wrote it down,” he said, placing the torn corner of a piece of paper in Tokusa’s hand.

“Thanks.” Tokusa put the paper in his pocket, against his phone. “Maybe I should text Emily Post again,” he said, smiling as he pulled out his phone. He stared at the texts, heart aching at the way they reminded him of Link and how he couldn’t talk to Link.

“Or you could go to school tomorrow and talk to Link,” Madarao said, standing up. “And don’t suffocate yourself. You promised you would fix Tewaku’s hair.”

Tokusa made a vague noise he knew Madarao didn’t hear as he tapped his fingers loudly against his keyboard.

_i hate fire drills_

To distract himself from wishing he was texting Howard Link, he went to Tewaku’s room where she was running a hairbrush through her hair, grimacing every time it caught on a rough spot.

“Need some help?”

She looked at him, smiling as she nodded, the handle of the hairbrush that was still in her hair, bobbing.

Tokusa was about to walk over to her, but then his phone vibrated in his hand.

_I'm sorry?_

Tokusa continued typing as he made his way over to Tewaku’s bed. He finished with one hand as he plucked the hairbrush out of her hair, smiling.

_we go to the same school right? so you were also out there in the cold for twenty minutes_

“Who are you texting?” she asked, sitting on the ground in front of him as he sat on her bed.

 “Here,” Tokusa said, lowering the phone into her hands. She tilted her head forwards as she read, allowing him to look at the tangled state of her hair. After setting the brush down on the bed, he worked his fingers down from the bright part near the roots to the part that was duller from malnutrition near the split ends. From fine gold thread to splintered straw.

“Reminds me of Howard Link.”

Tokusa hummed to distract himself from the unpleasant feeling in his stomach. “Yeah.” He picked up the hairbrush and began brushing Tewaku’s hair, the now-unknotted strands slipping through smoothly. “Were you invited to the party?”

“No, only one sophomore is invited and this year it’s Allen Walker,” she said, voice calm and relaxed as the hairbrush brushed against her scalp. “You were, though, right?” Her words were partially covered by Tokusa’s phone buzzing.

“Ah, yes, because I’m on the list,” he said, reaching down to take his phone from her.

_Yes._

_what class?_

When Tokusa went back to brushing, Tewaku asked, “So, you’re going then?”

“Hmm, yeah.” Tokusa parted her hair into three sections and began braiding. They sat in silence for a few minutes while Tokusa worked his fingers easily through Tewaku’s hair, his motions fluid from years of practice. Only a few inches remained unbraided by the time his phone buzzed again.

_AP Chemistry. What class were you in?_

Tokusa typed back quickly so he could finish the last bit of Tewaku’s braid.

_trig so i guess there was one good thing about the fire drill_

As he wrapped the red hairtie around the end, his phone buzzed against Tewaku’s bed.

_You have a class with my pseudo-brother._

“Do you think Emily is going?” Tewaku asked while Tokusa responded and thought about how Link might consider Allen his brother.

_oh you have a brother. i have like a sort of kind of sister_

“Well,” Tokusa said, looking down at Tewaku, who’s fingers were feeling along the bumps of her braid, “maybe. Tyki invites, like, sixty people from what I’ve heard, so it’s possible they were invited, but—” The words stopped in his throat when his phone buzzed again. Tokusa’s tongue was pressed against the back of his teeth as he read and responded to the message.

_Does she go to our school?_

_yeah sophomore. what about your brother?_

Tokusa’s phone buzzed against his palm before he could put it down.

_He's a sophomore, too. Maybe they know each other._

_maybe we know each other. what grade are you in Emily?_

Tokusa’s thumb hovered over the key for a few moments, wondering if he wanted it to be Link or not. He looked over at Tewaku when the bedsprings creaked and the bed shifted. Her eyes were focused on Tokusa’s phone, her hand was reaching towards his. The key clicked as her dainty finger pushed his aside.

“There,” she said, standing up.

“Thanks,” he said, phone buzzing while he watched her walk out of her room.

_Eleventh._

His heart stuttered for a moment before he remembered there were over two-hundred juniors at his school and more than one of them had to act like this. But there was a nagging thought in his mind that he couldn’t ignore about how nice it would be if that were true.

_funny i am too_

* * *

 

“It’s because he wants to sleep with you,” Link commented, not bothering to look up to see Allen or Mana’s face. He knew Allen would roll his eyes and Mana would look at him with a gentle disappointment. There was no point in looking away from scraping out the insides of his freshly cooked, steaming spaghetti squash. Though, Link kept his guard up and his ears open out of habit, ready to throw himself in front of Allen regardless of how he hadn’t needed to in over a year.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to. I just like looking at him when it’s kinda dark and he’s wearing tight pants, and he needs to, like, use his arms to pick up things,” Allen said, voice shifting from petulant to wistful as he spoke.

“Allen.”

Link stole a glance up, spoon halfway into the squash. Allen’s hip was pushed into the counter and his arms were crossed as he stared up at Mana like he was ready to stomp his foot and storm away. Mana on the other hand looked nowhere near snapping, a faint smile on his face. And that allowed Link to relax the tight grip he had developed on his metal spoon, letting it slip out of the indents it had created in his palm. Indents that would fade with time, like the remnants of Link’s painful years in foster care.

“Mana, please? Lavi will be there. You like Lavi.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re any safer surrounded by drunk teenagers,” Link muttered, spoon slamming against the rim of the plastic bowl harder than he intended as he deposited squash into the bowl. “Sorry,” he said after hearing Allen’s nails scrape against the counter.

“It’s fine,” Allen said, voice cracking.

“Allen, Link is right, though.”

Link looked up when he finished scraping out the squash, and saw that both Mana and Allen were staring at him. Allen was glaring, Mana looked expectant.

“You’re naïve,” Link began, watching the way Allen blinked at him, “and you’re easy to persuade because you’re young.”

“Well, so are you,” Allen yelled, hands reaching across the counter, reminding Link of the twelve-year-old boy who had lunged at Kanda because he called him stupid.

Allen never scared Link when he was like this. He was like a Chihuahua that was scared of its own bark. So, Link usually stayed quiet and still while he waited for Allen to calm down.

“Sorry,” Allen mumbled after a few moments, hands sliding against the counter until he was able grip the edge and look down at his fingers.

When Mana placed his hand on Allen’s shoulder, Allen flinched away before relaxing into the touch. “I’m driving you.”

Allen grimaced at Mana.

“Link’s driving you?” Mana suggested, an easy smile on his face.

“Fine,” Allen said, grimace fading only slightly.

“Wonderful,” Link said, spooning tomato sauce into the bowl with the spaghetti squash. He kept his eyes on the tomato scented steam rising from the bowl as he mixed everything, half-listening to Mana and Allen discussing Allen’s curfew.

* * *

 

Out of all the places Tokusa would have thought he would have grown to feel safe in, he never would have thought it would be a hospital. Especially not the waiting room of the gynecology wing. But, aside from home, it was the only other place he could let part of his guard down and realize how much energy he spent worrying about Madarao and Tewaku.

“Did you finish the reading?” Madarao asked, sounding preemptively disappointed.

Tokusa smiled, leaning back in the waiting room chair and looking up at the speckled ceiling. “I prefer the cliff-notes version.”

“A book about censorship that you’re refusing to read,” Tewaku mumbled over the sound of her pencil scraping against her notebook, “something about that seems off.”

Madarao snorted. The paperback book made a soft popping noise and released a stale scent near Tokusa’s noise as Madarao tapped him on the head with it. “Just read it.”

Tokusa took the book from Madarao, feeling how fragile it was in his hands. He ran his finger along the tattered cover. It was so broken, so open, but without any defense mechanisms.

Moments after Tokusa began flipping through the first few pages, too preoccupied by his thoughts to read more than the tagline, he heard footsteps shuffling towards them. When he looked up, Reni was standing in front of them, still wearing her pink scrubs, and her long, blonde hair up in a messy ponytail.

She opened her mouth but closed it tightly when her pager beeped. “Fifteen minutes,” she said as she checked it.

Before any of them could tell her that it didn’t matter to them, she was already running through the open door of the waiting room and down the hall. Only after the door had swung closed did Tokusa look back down at the book. Small print covered the page, daunting, overwhelming, smudged in places. Attempting to read it felt like the one time Tokusa had tried to eat when he was so hungry and scared that he was shaking. And it left him feeling as helpless and worthless. Maybe his reading skills would have been better if he had thought to bring books into hell like Link had.

The thought of Link tutoring him eased his frustrations and reminded him that Emily Post was rather resourceful.

_hey can you help me with the reading for english_

As Tokusa put his phone away, Reni walked back into the waiting room. There were a few drops of blood on her scrubs. “Maybe you should change first,” Tokusa said, handing Madarao the book back.

Reni looked down, frowning. Then, she looked at them and smiled like Tokusa had grown up wishing a parental figure would smile at him. Though, now it felt jarringly normal, and even though she did it all the time, it still felt like something he didn’t deserve. “Right. Sorry. Just give me ten more minutes and then we’ll go, just like I promised.”

“It doesn’t really matter. A broken promise isn’t the worst thing to happen,” Tokusa said. Without him meaning to, it came out dark, sarcastic. Something Tokusa was used to being followed by anything other than what Reni did.

She gently approached him like she was worried about scaring him, and then she knelt down in front of him. “But, I don’t break my promises,” she said, looking him directly in the eyes like she wanted him to believe her. “I grew up with my father breaking all his promises to me and I don’t ever want to do that to you three,” she added, looking at all of them.

It was what Tokusa had always wanted. For someone to look at him that gently, for someone to care, for someone to want him. His stomach twisted, though, and it got worse when she stood up and told them she loved them before leaving.

When Tokusa attempted to glance at Madarao, he caught sight of Tewaku and saw that she was smiling. Upon leaning closer, he realized that her eyes were wet.

“Are you okay?” Madarao asked, placing his hand on her head like that was supposed to be some kind of substitute for a hug.

Tewaku nodded, pushing Madarao’s hand away like she wasn’t fifteen and like she didn’t needed her older brother anymore. She wiped away her own tears with trembling fingers as she looked over at Tokusa. “You look upset.”

Tokusa always found himself unable to throw sarcastic remarks at Tewaku, but he also couldn’t think of a genuine response. So, instead he hummed and pulled out his phone. Emily had already texted him back.

_I can do it when I get back from dinner. Is that okay?_

_sure. dinner huh? got a date or something_

After typing at the same speed his heart was beating and then slamming the send button, Tokusa looked over and noticed that Madarao and Tewaku were staring at him.

“You look upset,” Madarao repeated like Tewaku was making him. It didn’t help that she looked as close to proud as one could look with a layer of worry clouding the brightness.

“I wonder why,” Tokusa muttered, looking back at his phone.

_No, nothing like that. I’m just having dinner with my pseudo-brother and our adoptive father._

“God, I swear this is Link,” Tokusa mumbled. When he glanced up, Madarao’s hand was in front of his face.

As Tokusa placed his phone on Madarao’s palm and Madarao pulled his hand away, Madarao said, “I know you’ve never really had a parent, but that’s just what the good ones are like. Both of you, because you probably don’t really remember Mom and Dad, Tewaku.” After a moment of his finger clicking against Tokusa’s phone’s keyboard, he added, “And stop acting like you don’t deserve it, Tokusa.”

Unsure of what to do with that information and still nauseous from being loved, Tokusa snatched his phone out of Madarao’s hands and said, “Just shut the fuck up.” He stood up and ran away, unable to bear looking at Madarao’s reaction. Not when he’d shattered the thin layer of sarcasm that had been protecting him his whole life.

Madarao had been his best friend since they were nine. He’d been his first kiss, the first person he’d ever trusted, the first person he’d ever felt any kind of love towards. And now he may have ruined that entire relationship with one sentence. Life was too fragile for Tokusa to feel like he could ever be a willing participant in it.

A few feet past an elevator, Tokusa felt someone grab his wrist, halting his running. When the grip around his wrist loosened, his phone slipped out of his hand and clacked against the tiled floor.

“Don’t act like I’m going to leave you because you finally said something honest. I’ve invested over seven years in this relationship, you piece of shit, and I’m not leaving now.”

While he was attempting to not cry, Tokusa turned around. Immediately, he regretted it because Madarao was smiling brighter than Tokusa had ever seen him smile. It broke Tokusa in the same way that Reni being motherly broke him, and he rested his forehead on Madarao’s warm shoulder and let himself cry.

He had cried before. In the dark after everyone was asleep, in the bathroom at school, on accident when he was scared, but he had never sobbed so hard that he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Madarao soothed, stroking Tokusa’s hair awkwardly, but not touching him otherwise. It was enough, though, for Tokusa to catch his breath. “By the way, I think you’re right about it being Link.”

As Tokusa pulled away, he did his best to stare at Madarao with his eyes sticky from his tears and he did his best to speak to him with his heart slamming against his ribs. “What?”

Madarao rolled his eyes before picking Tokusa’s phone up from the ground. “Come on, they’re probably waiting for us.”

As he followed Madarao back, Tokusa examined his phone and found that it was completely unharmed.

* * *

 

Link’s left arm burned beneath the white, ointment stained bandages that were hidden under the sleeve of his coat every time he moved. The smell of hospital lingered on his clothes from the plastic bag he’d put them in and in his hair from when he had rested his head on the flimsy pillow.

When he tried to get out of the car, he was overcome by a wave of dizziness from the morphine that was beginning to wear off. Mana caught his right shoulder and steadied him before he could collide with the concrete and earn himself another trip to the emergency room.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Mana asked, hand still on Link’s shoulder but with a much lighter grip than when Link had tumbled out of the car.

Link cleared his dry throat. “Yes. A little hospital visit shouldn’t stop us from going out to dinner to celebrate Allen getting a good grade on his trigonometry test.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it little,” Mana said, hand leaving Link’s shoulder and moving to stroke his hair in the warm, gentle way Link’s mother used to when he was sick or scared. “They almost kept you overnight and they told you to go home and rest.”

“Kid’s gotta eat,” Nea said as he rounded the car. Before Link could agree with Nea for the first time in his life, Nea picked him up.

Along with suddenly losing the comfort Mana had been providing and replacing it with a jolt of adrenaline, Nea’s action also left Link dizzy again.

“Nea D. Campbell,” Mana scolded, more childish than parental. Link was still high enough that he found himself laughing. Not in a reserved way, but in the way he hadn’t since he was twelve.

“You laugh?” Nea asked as he set Link down on the ground in front of the door to the restaurant.

Before Link could get too far in wondering if it was a bad thing that Nea had to ask, Allen’s chin rested on top of his head, too heavy and too warm for Link’s current state of intoxication. “Are you sure you don’t want to go home?” Allen asked, voice vibrating against Link’s head. Gentle enough to relax him, but harsh enough to keep him awake.

“Yes.” Link tried to straighten up but he was too weak for Allen to be this heavy. “Allen.”

“Sorry,” Allen said, his weight leaving Link’s head. He flashed Link a sheepish smile as he opened the door for him.

Nea walked through it first. “Thanks, Allen.”

“I really appreciate you picking me up from school and bringing me to the hospital, but why are you still here?” Allen called after Nea as Nea got them a table. As far as Link could tell through his somewhat foggy state, there was no anger in Allen’s voice, only mild annoyance. And because of that, Link felt more comfortable that he hadn’t been able to throw his guard up since they’d pushed morphine into his bloodstream.

“Link?” Mana asked, hand back on Link’s shoulder with a featherlight touch.

When Link glanced up as he was about walk into the restaurant, he found that Allen was looking at him like he was ready to catch him. “I’m fine,” he said, leaving Mana’s touch and walking through the door.

“I didn’t say anything,” Allen said as he followed Link to the table, practically pushing him from pressing too close. The smell of hospital hadn’t stuck to Allen in the same way. It was fainter, and reminded Link of when Allen had been sitting by his bedside, asking the doctor more worry-induced questions than Mana had. “By the way, what were you and Edwin texting about in the car?” Allen asked as he pulled Link’s chair out for him.

“My hands still function just fine, thank you,” Link said, but he took his coat off and sat down anyways. As Allen sat down next to him, he took a deep breath of the warm air and then said, “I think I was texting Tokusa.”

“Who’s Tokusa?” Nea asked, sounding disgustingly intrigued, at the same time Allen practically yelled, “What?”

Link took a quick look around the dimly lit restaurant and found that several people had stopped their conversations for a moment to stare at them.

“Allen,” Mana said, a finger hovering over his smiling lips and the reassurance from his smile evident in his eyes.

When Link looked at Allen, he didn’t see Allen hunched and trying to make himself smaller, he saw Allen smiling back sheepishly. “Sorry, Mana.” And then he looked at Link.

“To my knowledge, there are four juniors in your trigonometry class, one of which is Lavi. How many of the other three did well on your test?”

Link watched realization wash over Allen as he waited for the verbal answer to his question. “Tokusa.”

Something tapped Link’s foot. “Isn’t that him?” Mana asked.

When Link looked to his other side, he immediately spotted Tokusa sitting down at a table with Madarao, Tewaku, and Reni. There must have been something about the combination of morphine and all those texts they’d shared that left Link’s heart feeling fluttery at the sight of Tokusa’s nose buried in his scarf. “Yes, it is.”

“Who told him that was a good hairstyle?” Nea asked.

“Madarao?” Allen answered like it was a serious question.

“Who?”

As they continued their pointless conversation, Link noticed that Tokusa kept darting his eyes over as he spoke to Reni. And then he watched as Tokusa approached.

“Hi,” Tokusa said in a rough puff of air.

“Hello.”

After a moment of standing there with his mouth open, Tokusa said, “You’re so hot, I bet you could burn books.” Link didn’t get to process that sentence before Tokusa was bolting out of the restaurant, slowing down only to say something to Reni that was nothing but harsh noise by the time it reached Link’s ears.

“Four-hundred and fifty-one degrees, right?” Nea asked.

Link nodded, unable to speak because he was still high and processing that Tokusa had been calling him Emily Post for two weeks and had possibly complimented him.

* * *

 

Rain began to soak through Tokusa’s clothes and drench his hair the moment he stepped out of the restaurant. He blinked the cold droplets out of his eyes while he thought about moving towards the car. Somewhere around realizing he had no way of opening the car, something stopped the rain from falling on him and the splattering got louder, echoing above him. When he looked up, he saw a polka dot umbrella.

“Should we go sit in the car?” Reni asked.

“Yeah.” Tokusa let Reni lead on their way to the car, sticking close to her to stay under the cover of the umbrella. Though, he didn’t realize how cold he was until Reni turned on the car and blasted the heat, and the sudden temperature change left him shivering.

“That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but it was very…” Reni paused, staring at Tokusa like she wanted to say something nice. And then she smiled softly. “Brave.”

Tokusa snorted, taking his scarf off and throwing it onto the dashboard. “Especially the part where I ran away.” He looked up at the small light on the ceiling. It was too bright but too weak like the way Tokusa had been brave enough to finally talk to Link, but too faint-hearted to not back out immediately.

“I think if I was as good at this as Twi or Edgar, then I would have something other to say than ‘so what?’ You were still brave when you went up to him and you were still brave when you talked to him. That doesn’t just go away because you got scared.”

Three breathes passed before Tokusa was able to look away from the ceiling. Another two passed before he was able to look away from the rain-coated windshield. When he finally looked at Reni, she was giving him that parental smile again. It didn’t hurt this time, because his defenses were broken because he didn’t need them anymore.

“I still said something stupid.” It was sincere, lacking any veneer of false confidence.

“I once told my father that I no longer cared that I would never make him happy and that I was going to make me happy. At the time, I thought that was stupid, but I had to say it.” With the way she was smiling at him like it was going to be okay, and with thinking about what he’d said, Tokusa couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yes, but did you compare him to a book title?”

Reni laughed with him until Tokusa’s heart felt light and until it didn’t feel as bad that Tokusa had thrown a literary pick-up line at Link. They laughed until Reni’s phone rang.

“Hold on.” The moment she answered it, her smile dropped. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. I’m just going to make sure my kids are okay.”

“Don’t break your promise,” Tokusa said as she put her phone away. After she looked at him for a moment, he added, “Aren’t oaths promises?”

She smiled. “Yes, it is. I’m going to go give the keys to Madarao and then go to the hospital. Will you be okay?”

“Yeah,” Tokusa said, smiling in a way that he hoped wasn’t coming off as fake because he was somewhat sure he believed himself.

“Talk to Madarao. And, talk to Link too,” Reni said as she got out of the car. With the heating no longer on, the rush of cold air left Tokusa shivering as it hit his wet hair and clothes.

Neither of those sounded fun, but the latter sounded impossible, especially since he would have to do it alone. When he pulled out his phone so he would have something to look at that wasn’t glass covered in water, he saw that Emily Post was calling him.

Because he needed it to be Link and he needed to know that it wasn’t, he answered. “Link?”

“Yes. Tokusa?”

Tokusa’s heart dropped and pains shot through his stomach like he wasn’t breathing. As he hung up, he realized he hadn’t been and air rushed into his lungs. Though, he had no idea why.

And he had no idea why he sent a text to Madarao before getting out of the car.

_im goin out for a bit dont worry be back soon_

The rain seeped through Tokusa’s shoes with every step. For the first time in his life, he had shoes that would keep out rain and keep his feet warm, and he hadn’t worn them because he hadn’t expected it to rain. Like he hadn’t expected Link to be Emily Post.

Though, he should have expected both of those. It had been raining a lot recently and Link had been the one to tell him who Emily Post was. In the middle of the night when Link was reading under the light of a mini flashlight Tokusa had stolen from the lost and found at school, Tokusa had asked him what he was reading and Link had told him the story of someone who wrote about etiquette and was married to a banker who cheated on her with chorus girls. At the time, Tokusa had thought that sounded like a very exciting lifestyle, and had told Link he wouldn’t have minded any of it if he got to sleep in a warm bed and got to eat whatever he wanted.

Now, he had a warm bed and he got to eat whatever he wanted, within reason because Reni cared enough to not let him eat twelve Poptarts in one sitting. He had a home and someone who cared about him and he was walking in the rain away from it because he still couldn’t handle his actions or their consequences.

Tokusa didn’t know why he had done it, but somehow, he ended up at Tyki’s house. When Tyki had said there was a gate code, Tokusa had not expected something that looked like a cross between a house and a castle, especially under the soft glow of the lights around the house. After staring in awe at the house while continuing to stand in the rain for long enough that Tokusa registered that his toes were numb, he entered the gate code.

 After it creaked open slowly, Tokusa walked onto the driveway. It was longer than it looked, but maybe that was because the cold air was beginning to hurt Tokusa’s lungs. The last thing he bothered to look at before knocking on the heavy, wood door, was the sports car sitting in the driveway, getting covered in rain.

The first thing Tyki said when he opened the door was, “Oh shit, it’s raining.” After placing the snake that he had been holding around Tokusa’s arm, he pushed Tokusa into the house as he went out to the driveway.

Having a snake slithering on his wet skin was not a sensation Tokusa would ever want to replicate, but it was sort of cute when it was looking at him. “You probably haven’t done anything stupid today.”

Tokusa looked away from the snake when he heard the garage open over the constant sound of rain. As he ignored the feeling of the snake, he watched the car move into the garage. When the garage closed, Tokusa closed the door and waited for Tyki.

“Here’s your snake,” Tokusa said, handing the snake back to Tyki once he was close enough. It was then that he noticed that Tyki was wearing a shirt that said, “Caution: Contents Hot” and that he had rain speckled glasses. “Why don’t you wear your glasses at school?”

Tyki smiled. Despite that his shirt was soaked enough to cling to his muscular body, he looked so dorky with his hair wet, his glasses, that weird choice of shirt, and the snake nestling its face against his hand. “Because then no one would be able to see my dazzling blue eyes.”

Before Tokusa could say anything, Tyki walked away and told Tokusa to follow him. After Tokusa kicked off his shoes, he did. As they walked, Tokusa noticed paintings and the architecture of the banister, but he didn’t see any people or any family pictures. “Huh, I guess even rich people can be lonely.”

He hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but all Tyki said was, “Anyone can feel lonely.”

They stopped in a room where Tyki put the snake in an enclosure. It was a room that was messier than the rest of what Tokusa had seen. The bed was unmade, there were clothes on the floor and papers on the desk. But there were also pictures on the desk and the wall in front of the desk. Pictures of Tyki and who Tokusa assumed was Tyki’s brother, pictures of Tyki when he was younger with his brother and the people that looked like their parents, and a picture of a lot of people, two of which were Nea and Mana.

“Do you know Nea and Mana?” Tokusa asked.

“Hmm? Yeah, they’re my second cousins.”

A towel hit Tokusa before he could say anything about Tyki wanting to have sex with Allen.

“Go sit by the air vent.”

Tokusa looked around the room until he found it. As he approached it, he felt the warm air radiating from it and sighed as it started to warm him up. “Did you have sex with Lavi?” Tokusa asked, watching Tyki rummage through his closet.

“No, did you?” Tyki asked, sounding like he wasn’t listening.

“Wait, then what happened at your party last year?”

Tyki stopped rummaging for a moment. “Um, nothing.” The rummaging continued. “I talked to him about Allen for a while. You know, we both had detention in junior high and he told me about Allen and then I found out last year that he still hadn’t done anything, so I invited him to see if I could talk to him about it. He’ll answer a lot of questions when he’s drunk.”

“So, you don’t want to have sex with Allen?” Tokusa asked while Tyki walked towards him holding a shirt and a pair of pajamas.

“I don’t wanna have sex with anyone. I just like playing matchmaker and since I helped get Allen and Lavi together, I invited them both.” While Tyki spoke, he placed the towel over Tokusa’s head and dried his hair.

“You’re so weird.”

“You’re the one who came all the way out here to ask me about Lavi.”

“That’s actually not why I came here,” Tokusa said, turning to look up at Tyki.

Tyki offered him a smile before going back to his closet. “Then why?”

After a few moments of watching Tyki undress, Tokusa said, “Because I didn’t really have anywhere else to go,” and looked away.

“I’m guessing something happened.”

“A lot of somethings,” Tokusa said as he stood up. He took off his soaked clothes, feeling how heavy and cold they were as he dropped them to the ground. For a moment, he stared at his jacket that Reni had bought for him the day he had gone to live with her and his heart ached. And then he put on the warm, dry clothes Tyki had given him, ignoring his thoughts about what she and Madarao and Tewaku might be thinking.

As expected, the pants were too long and the shirt was too big, but he would take it over being cold and they were some of the softest clothes he’d ever worn. As he finished patting his semi-dry hair down, he heard a faint beeping. “What’s that?”

“The oven. Do you want food?”

“Did you cook it?”

When Tokusa looked at Tyki, he winked at him. “I’ll let you figure that out.” As he left, Tokusa ran after him.

“I don’t want food poisoning.”

“If you get food poisoning, then I’ll also get food poisoning.”

“Good point,” Tokusa said as they stopped in the kitchen. It smelled like warmth and food and coziness, like the kitchen at his home. “I think I ran away from something I’ve wanted my whole life because I can’t handle the fact that I’ve been flirting with Link and that I hit on him today because I think I’m in love with him.”

Tyki’s hand moved from the oven handle and he looked at Tokusa with his mouth open. “I think I can fix this,” he said after a few moments.

* * *

 

Because Link hadn’t wanted to ruin Allen’s dinner, he had insisted they stay until Allen was ready to leave. In that moment, Allen had decided to have them take their food to go. Link still hadn’t eaten his dinner even though it had been over half an hour since they had left the restaurant.

Maybe it was a combination of being tired from the morphine, being in pain from the burn, and Tokusa hanging up on him. It was only when he looked at a couple of their text conversations that he realized the way they’d talked to each other. There was a certain pseudo-openness they had both displayed while still staying within their own comfort zones.

 

_i just ate a cupcake for breakfast and thought of you_

_When I woke up this morning and saw that it wasn't raining, I thought of you, too._

_too bad its still too cloudy to see stars tonight but at least i have cupcakes. probably not as good as yours though_

_You would need to eat my cupcakes first to make that kind of claim._

_are you offering to bake for me?_

_I could if you want me to._

_of course i do unless youre planning on poisoning me_

_How are the chorus girls?_

_haha yeah lol im probably safer over here with my store bought cupcakes_

_< 3 im pretty sure i just aced a trig test because of you_

_You're welcome. I heard it was quite difficult._

_yeah im really lucky i know you_

_Emily?!!!!?????_

_Emily?_

_Emily!!_

_Emily Post???!!!!!!!!!_

_halp_

_Is that a typo?_

_no but whatever it takes to get your attention_

_Did you need something?_

_i dont really have anything to say i just like talking to you_

_I find that odd because it seems like you always have something to say._

_thanks?????_

_It's a good thing._

_< 3 so you like when i talk to you?_

_Yes, I do._

Someone knocked on the door and pulled him out of his reminiscing. Only then did Link realize that he was feeling that same fluttering in his heart, but now it was fainter. Something Link attributed to the long day he’d had catching up to him.

“Yes?”

Nea opened the door and walked in. Link’s stomach didn’t churn because he hated Nea, but because Nea never gave him good advice.

“Mana wants me to tell you a story,” he said as he closed the door. “And trust me, I want to tell this story less than you want to hear it.”

Link had neither the concentration because of the pain nor the mental energy from being so tired, to deal with this. So, instead, he let Nea sit down next to him on his bed and hand him two white pills.

“Don’t worry, it’s not the oxy they gave you, but Mana figured you might need something.”

Since he had gotten dizzy and nearly passed out, Link took the pills and swallowed them in hopes the pain wouldn’t get that bad. The pills stuck in his dry throat like what Link had wanted to say to Tokusa had. And they dropped to his stomach like Link’s heart had when Tokusa had hung up.

“So, I’m not really sure what Mana wants you to get from this and I never talk about this, but he practically begged me to do this.”

“Alright,” Link said, turning his head to watch Nea stare at where the wall met the ceiling. Link had never seen that look of wistful sadness on his face. He had never seen Nea be anything other than amused and entertained.

“I fell in love once. When I was fifteen. I don’t know when it happened, but I realized it when I got stood up on Valentine’s day of 1981, about ten months after we’d met. He was a seventeen-year-old high school dropout named Cross Marian who was a waiter at the restaurant I had been playing piano at. He had sat on my piano bench, tucked my hair behind my ear, and asked me if I realized how distractingly beautiful I was.”

Nea looked at Link, the smile on his face like Mana’s. “Yeah, I know. It worked, though.” The wistfulness and the sadness creeped back in slowly as he continued. “We weren’t really in a relationship because he was still fucking whoever he wanted to, but I didn’t care that much. We had fights but I always knew he would come back. Though, I never really thought it would be a big deal if we stopped having sex and hanging out in my room. Not until he told me in fall of 1984, the beginning of my sophomore year of college, that he wasn’t going to have sex with anyone but me.”

There was a hint of hyperventilation in Nea’s breathing as he looked away from Link and at the wall. “I learned just past midnight on New Year’s Day 1985 that he hadn’t been having sex with anyone else for almost a year and the reason he lied is not only because he was scared, but also because he needed an excuse for the second job he picked up because he was going to buy me a ring even though we couldn’t actually get married anyway. He gave it to me as his head laid in my lap and he was half-dead from pneumocystis pneumonia. After I found out that he was dying, he told me he fell in love with me on my seventeenth birthday when I was shoving cake in Mana’s face. I finally told him, too, but it was too late for us. I spent the next month getting drunk in the shower and crying. And I spent the month after that so scared that I had HIV, but almost wishing for it because I missed him so much. I felt alone even though I had Mana and my mom and Twi and Edgar.” When Nea looked at Link again, there was a moment when he looked like he could manage his sadness. “Did Mana every tell you that Edgar was our roommate in college?”

“No.”

“Yeah. We were good friends. Edgar told us he loved Twi years before he told her, but I told Twi that Edgar loved her because I learned that sometimes it’s too later.” Nea swallowed and his eyes shined under the ceiling light like moonlight reflecting off the surface of a lake. “A piece of my heart died the last day I saw Cross and sometimes I wonder if that wouldn’t have happened if I had just told him I loved him when I realized it. Maybe we could have had years of happiness. So, maybe that was the point that Mana wanted me to get across.”

“I’m sorry,” was all Link could think to say. Because he had never seen Nea nearly crying and because he wasn’t sure how he had managed to pay attention when the pain was approaching unbearably intense.

Nea sighed, smiling like Mana, but the pain he was masking unsuccessfully reminded Link of Allen. “It was a long time ago and the world has changed a lot.” It was only then that Link realized Nea had something in his closed fist. It was a ring. One that was surrounded by diamonds. “You could probably buy a car with this or pay for one year of college tuition,” Nea said as he held it out for Link.

“I can’t take that,” Link said, watching the diamonds glint sharply under the light.

“It took me fifteen years to take it off, but when I did, I told Mana that I would give it to his kid one day. Now, he has two, so I’m giving it to you because you’re the oldest and because Lavi’s family has money.” Nea ended with a slight wrinkling of his nose to accompany his smile. When he placed it in Link’s hand, he said, “Use it to buy a car if you want. And call him.”

Link looked down at the ring as it laid on his open palm. “I don’t think he’ll pick up.” As he waited for a response, Link continued watching the light play across the diamonds with every subtle movement of his hand.

“Give me your phone.”

When Link handed it to Nea, he didn’t expect Nea to eventually say, “Hey, Tyki do you know how I can get ahold of Tokusa?” Link looked over as Nea smiled. “He’s sitting right next to you, huh? Well, give him the phone so Link can talk to him.” As Nea gave Link his phone back, he said, “Make it count.” And then he left.

“Tokusa?” Link asked as he pressed the phone to his ear.

“I’m sorry and I like you.” Tokusa chuckled, hollowly like he felt like he needed to do something. “Those are sort of unrelated.”

“I like you too,” Link said, feeling like he wasn’t supposed to be saying it. Like he was supposed to be focusing all his attention on school and keeping an eye on Allen.

“Do you wanna go out with me tomorrow provided I’m not grounded?”

Link couldn’t stop himself from smiling despite how tired he was, despite that the medicine had only begun to take the sharpest of edges off the pain. “I would love to. And, I’ll bring you my English notes. Though, I think you’re in regular English, so they might be more detailed than what you need.”

“I would love more details because I’m so confused. By the way, what happened to your arm?”

“Alma.”

Before Link could finish organizing and telling Tokusa the rest of the story, Tokusa asked, “Alma did that?”

“On accident. We had a chemistry lab earlier today and we were working with sodium hydroxide that wasn’t dissolved in water. He dropped it on my arm on accident, and not only is it a caustic chemical, but when it mixes with water, it gets very hot, and there is water in your skin. So, I have a chemical burn and a thermal burn.” Talking about it kept Link’s mind on it and on the burning pain that could not be dulled fast enough.

“Ouch. Oh, hold on, Tyki wants to talk to you. I’ll text you later when I figure out my grounding situation and we can get a more concrete plan.”

Before Link could say anything, Tyki asked, “Where do I find Alma and Kanda?”

It took Link a few moments to recover from how loud Tyki had been. “Have you checked the roof at lunch? Although, if you’re only asking so you can invite them to your party, I can pass on the gate code to Alma and Kanda’s not going.”

The phone slipped out of Link’s hand a touch when Tyki made a loud clicking noise. “Awesome. See you Monday.”

Link was not given the chance to respond before Tyki hung up. As he called Alma, he lied back on his bed and held the ring up to the light. It was so extravagant and Link was sure he had never touched something so expensive. It wasn’t fragile though, nor did it feel delicate. Especially not when it glittered under the light obnoxiously. Maybe Allen wasn’t as delicate or fragile as Link had been treating him. His life was certainly priceless, to Link at least.

“I’m so fucking sorry about your arm. Please tell me that you’re out of the hospital.”

“It’s fine, Alma.” Link took a moment to remember what he was going to say and push aside his other thoughts. “I’ve been out of the hospital for a few hours, but I got distracted. Also, Tyki wants me to give you the gate code.”

“Oh, good. I finished up the chem lab, so I can drop by with the data tomorrow and you can give me the gate code.”

Link stood up too quickly and got dizzy. “Well, the thing is, I might have a date with Tokusa tomorrow.”

The moment Alma started to make a loud sound, Link pulled the phone away from his ear. While he waited for Alma to finish, he took the few steps to get to his desk, still recovering from his dizziness and half-stumbling his way there. “That’s amazing,” Alma finally said as Link put the ring in his desk drawer.

“Amazing, huh?”

“Well, I just mean that I think he’s liked you for a while. But, what about your creepy-bathroom-stall-number-getting-guy?” As Alma spoke, Link sat back down on his bed.

“Tokusa.”

Alma took a few seconds too long responding and Link felt himself drifting off to sleep. “He had a crush on you twice.”

Link hummed, trying to keep his eyes open.

“I’ll let you get some sleep. I’ll drop by on Sunday with the chem lab in exchange for the details of your date and that gate code.”

Link was sure he said something before Alma hung up, but he may have already drifted off to sleep.

* * *

 

When Reni arrived at a house that looked similar to the one she was raised in, she wondered if she had the right address. The gate code Madarao had given her worked, though.

As she walked across the driveway, she thought about what she would do if Tokusa wasn’t there. She wasn’t sure where else he could be and Madarao and Tewaku didn’t have any other ideas either.

If he wasn’t behind the door she was now standing in front of, her only other idea was to ask Edgar and Twi what they would do. Only when Tokusa opened the door did she realize how much she had wanted to handle this situation on her own. Not because she didn’t love them and appreciate every piece of advice they had ever given her, but because she wanted to prove to herself and to them that they had prepared her to handle any situation.

Without questioning Tokusa’s clothes, without lecturing him on running away, without thinking too hard about the remnants of fear in Tokusa’s green eyes, Reni stepped inside the house and hugged him.

“I’m sorry,” Tokusa mumbled, hesitant like he was scared of what she would say. The tentative way he hugged her back only reflected that.

“It’s okay.” Reni let him go so she could look him in the eyes and placed her hand on his head as she said, “I got scared because I didn’t know where you were and so did Madarao and Tewaku.”

The worry in Tokusa’s eyes faded and was replaced with a touch of surprise and happiness. “Am I grounded?”

“No.” After having given it a lot of thought in the car, Reni had realized grounding Tokusa wouldn’t help him think about his actions. “I want you to write me an essay.”

After grimacing for a moment, Tokusa smiled. “Does that mean I can go on a date tomorrow?”

“After you write the essay.”

“Deal.”

Before Reni could ask if the date was with Link, someone came down the stairs holding Tokusa’s phone and jacket. “Your clothes are still wet, but your jacket is mostly dry from the heating vent. Also, you have about a hundred text messages.” As he spoke, Reni noticed that he looked remarkably like Nea.

Thoughts about asking if they were related disappeared when she noticed that Tokusa was wearing this boy’s clothes and they were exchanging an odd look as Tokusa took his jacket and phone. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had—”

Tokusa dropped his jacket and his phone as he looked at Reni with wide eyes. After a moment of near-total silence, Tokusa yelled, “We didn’t have sex!”

“Okay,” Reni said slowly, in a way she always did when she was worried about scaring Tokusa. “I understand, but just so you know, you can get most STDs from oral sex.”

When Tokusa was done making loud, incoherent noises and giving Reni a horrified look, the other boy asked, “So, is this your mom?”

There was a weight on Reni’s chest and too many thoughts on what that question meant and how Tokusa would react running through her head during the second or two it took Tokusa to smile. “Hell yeah, she is,” Tokusa said, looking at the other boy, and the weight and the thoughts melted away.

It was more than Reni could have ever hoped for, but she felt pride at having Tokusa say that.

“Great. I’m Tyki, and yes, I’m related to Nea. He’s my second cousin. Can Tokusa come to my party next Friday?”

Before Reni could respond to anything Tyki said, Tokusa placed his hand over Tyki’s mouth and asked, “Why would you tell her that?”

After watching Tyki try to say something for a moment, but fail because Tokusa wouldn’t move his hand, Reni said, “You can go.”

Tokusa’s hand dropped and Tyki smiled down at him. “See?”

Instead of acknowledging Tyki, Tokusa stared at Reni like he was so used to no one ever letting him have anything that he still couldn’t believe someone would treat him like he was allowed to have what he wanted, like he was worth giving things to. “But, there are a few rules. You’re not driving yourself, I or Madarao will pick you up at one, try not to drink too much, please don’t do drugs, and you have to call me if you need anything no matter what you did. Okay?”

Tokusa smiled and nodded vigorously. “Absolutely.”

When Reni smiled back, the warmth of her smile reflected in Tokusa’s as it softened to one that was like the bright, carefree summers of childhood. Something Tokusa had never gotten, but with that smile it didn’t look like he cared about that anymore. “Good. Then, let’s go home.” As she looked to thank Tyki, she found that he was running up the stairs.

“I think he went to get my shoes,” Tokusa said, drawing Reni’s attention away from the stairs. When she looked at Tokusa, she remembered that he wasn’t wearing his own clothes, and she finally read the wrinkled shirt he was wearing. “Poker is a sport.”

Tokusa abruptly looked down at his shirt. “Oh, I didn’t even notice.” The smile on his face when he looked at her was so sweet and simple, she hoped it meant he finally felt safe.

“Me either,” she said, too flooded with relief to think of much else.

“Shoes,” Tyki said, dropping the shoes on the ground and startling both Reni and Tokusa.

After a moment, Tokusa began putting his shoes on, and Reni looked at Tyki and said, “Thank you so much for letting Tokusa borrow your clothes and for drying his.”

The look of surprise on Tyki’s face reminded Reni of the look on Nea’s face when she had thanked him for letting her borrow a pencil when she was five. And the way he said, “Oh, sure,” was exactly how Nea had said the same thing before telling Reni to keep the pencil. It was such a simple gesture, but it had proven to her that people who weren’t Edgar and Twi didn’t always do things that only benefited them. To her knowledge, her whole life up to that point had been thinking that Edgar and Twi were the only selfless people she would ever encounter. The pencil was currently sitting in the jewelry box Twi had given her on her fourteenth birthday. “He can keep those and I’ll get him his clothes on Monday,” Tyki said, glancing at Tokusa halfway through.

Reni smiled. “Thank you. By the way, whatever happened to that ring?”

“What ring?”

“I guess maybe he took it off before you were old enough to remember.” As she finished talking, Reni looked over and saw that Tokusa had his jacket and his shoes on. “Ready?”

Tokusa nodded before flashing a smile at Tyki and saying, “Thanks for being so weird.”

As Reni opened her mouth to ask what that was about, Tokusa walked towards the door. After offering Tyki an apologetic smile that he looked like he wasn’t sure what to do with, she joined Tokusa in leaving.

They were quiet on the way to the car, but Reni didn’t fail to notice the slight tension in Tokusa’s posture or the way he was keeping his eyes on the ground. “Did something else happen?”

It wasn’t until they were in the car that Tokusa looked at her and said, “I think I’m waiting for you to be more upset.” And there were the remnants of a guarded smile on his face.

“Edgar once told me that it’s so easy for parents to hurt their kids, but not so easy for kids to hurt their parents because parents understand, or at least should understand, that kids mess up sometimes because they’re just trying to understand the world,” Reni said without letting another second of Tokusa being worried go by.

While Tokusa stared at her in the same way Reni was sure she had stared at Edgar, she began driving them home because Madarao and Tewaku were worried enough already.

Eventually, Tokusa chuckled and then asked, “So, if Edgar and Twi are kind of like your parents, does that make Alma my uncle?”

As Reni pulled to a stop at a red light, she wondered if that meant Tokusa believed what she’d said. But when she looked at him, he was smiling at her again, so vulnerable it surprised her. “Um, I guess you could say that,” she said after a moment. She smiled as she returned her eyes to the light to wait for it to turn green.

“I’m gonna call him Uncle Alma at school on Monday to see how he reacts.”

The light switched to green and Reni took her foot off the break. Before she accelerated through the intersection, she glanced at Tokusa one last time to see how happy he was.

* * *

 

Mana was so focused on working, he only noticed Link had walked into the kitchen when he saw the light from the fridge. “How are you feeling?” he asked. Despite that he thought it was soft, he still noticed Link flinch slightly. “Sorry,” he said as he set his computer on the coffee table and stood up so he could join Link in the kitchen.

When he stopped next to Link and felt the cold air from the fridge contrasting with the warm air in the apartment, he realized that Link was subtly shivering.

“Why don’t you go sit on the couch and I’ll warm up your food.”

After a moment, Link nodded and said, “Okay.” While he left the kitchen and Mana took his food out of the fridge, Link said, “Allen is sleeping in my bed.” There was a certain soft fondness that Mana had heard in Link’s voice a few times in the middle of the night. The last time had been a couple weeks before they moved to this apartment, but it lacked the overprotective edge that had compelled Mana to move them so they would be closer together.

“I used to get sick a lot when I was younger and Nea and Timcampy would sleep in my bed,” Mana said as he popped open the box and put it in the microwave.

“Timcampy?” Link repeated like he was unsure he had heard it right.

“Our cat,” Mana said over the hum of the microwave. As the food sizzled and popped through its uneven heating process, Mana turned around and watched Link stare at his hands neatly folded in his lap. The stiffness in Link’s demeanor hadn’t completely left him in all the time Mana had known him, but it had softened as fast as Mana supposed it could.

When the microwave beeped, Mana winced and hoped it didn’t wake Allen up as he took it out. When he was younger, the bottom of the box would have been too hot to touch, but now it didn’t bother him much. Like how he hoped all the pain Link and Allen had experienced would bother them less as they got older.

After getting a fork, he walked over to Link and placed the box on the coffee table. “Careful,” he said, handing Link the fork.

“Did I ever tell you what my parents did for work?” Link asked, fork flicking over the pasta as the steam rose up around his hand.

“No.” When Mana sat down, Link dropped the fork, but kept staring at the food.

“My mom was a teacher and my dad was an engineer. I had the most picturesque childhood until they passed away.” Link mumbled something in German like he was unsure if after all these years, he could still do it. “Those were my parents last words to me. ‘We’ll be back in five minutes, my treasure’ and ‘I love you, Howard. Don’t answer the door while we’re gone’.” Before Mana could say anything or try to comfort that distressed tone out of Link’s voice, Link continued. “That was the day my perfect childhood ended and I started being treated less like the treasure of the two most important people in the world to me and more like I was a worthless burden to people who couldn’t spare a shred of warmth. And Allen had been treated like that for his entire life.”

“Link,” Mana said, perhaps too quickly, but Link needed to hear this and he should have said it sooner. “You don’t owe some kind of debt to anyone because you had parents who loved you.” At the catch in Link’s breathing, Mana offered Link a gentle smile that he knew Link was only getting the peripheral of. “Allen’s okay. He’s okay because you did such a good job of taking care of him and trying to give him the kind of love that you grew up with.”

When Link looked at him, there was a delicate sadness in his eyes that was slowly covered by realization. Moments passed without either of them saying anything, but then Mana noticed Allen walking into the living room with a sleepy smile on his face.

“And I really appreciate that,” he said as he leaned down to kiss the top of Link’s head.

Only after Link tilted his head back and looked up at Allen, all traces of sadness gone, did Mana smile.

“Did we wake you?” Link asked as Mana got up to get him a glass of water and some pain medication.

“No, your phone did. It lit up right in front of my eyes.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” There was a pause while Mana watched water fill the glass. “Tokusa wants me to know that it’s a terrible night for stargazing, but it’s snowing. And he wants to know if I can come over this afternoon around three for our…” Link paused again. When Mana turned around to walk back to the living room, he found that Allen looked close to laughing as Link looked at his phone like he was malfunctioning.

“Date, Link. You have a date.”

“Right,” Link said, eyes still on his phone. At the two successive clicks from Mana placing the pain pills on the coffee table, Link dropped his phone on the couch and looked up at Mana.

“That’s why you woke up, right?” Mana asked, holding out the water and hoping he wasn’t overstepping. After two silent moments, Link nodded and took the water.

“Thanks.”

While Mana watched the careful way Link picked up the pills, he heard Allen’s footsteps pad into the kitchen. The fridge opened and Allen said, “Oh yeah, I finished my food.”

As quickly as Link’s eyes widened, he downed the pills and a few gulps of water. “You can have mine.”

Instead of saying anything because he knew that Link wouldn’t listen, Mana waited until Allen sat down on the couch next to Link, picked up Link’s fork, strands of pasta covering it, put it in Link’s mouth and said, “Eat your food, Howard.”

“He’s right,” Mana said as Allen pulled the fork out of Link’s mouth.

While Link chewed, he stared at Mana like he was deciding on something. He didn’t say anything, though, before looking at Allen.

He never got to say whatever he opened his mouth to say before Allen said, “You don’t have to protect me from things and look after me and spend far too much of your energy making me feel loved.”

“I know, Allen. At least, I do now. You were quite parental back at the hospital.”

When Allen kissed Link’s forehead, Mana went into the kitchen to get Allen something to eat. “So, we’re okay?” Allen asked.

“Yes, we’re okay.”

* * *

 

Tokusa was in total darkness, staring up even though he couldn’t see his ceiling. When the door creaked open and light filtered into his room, Tokusa sat up and found Tewaku standing in his doorway, her eyes shining in the weak light like the stars she liked to look at so much.

“What’s wrong?” Tokusa asked, voice feeling like it was nearly as loud as the door had been.

“Are you going to leave again?” Her voice was so soft and quiet and fragile.

Without hesitating for a moment, Tokusa slipped out of his bed, ignoring how cold he suddenly was, and walked Tewaku over to his window, turning his light on on his way there. When he pulled back the curtain, he glanced back and saw that Tewaku was squinting. “It is kind of bright, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said as they sat down by the window. It was colder here, and Tokusa wished he’d brought the blanket

It didn’t take long for Tokusa to forget about that, though, and focus on the starless sky. “No, I’m not. And I really shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

When she didn’t respond, Tokusa got back up and grabbed his blanket. As he sat back down, he threw it over both of them, blocking out most of the light and all of the cold.

“It’s too warm under here,” Tewaku mumbled, crossing her legs.

While she fiddled with the hem of her pajama pants, Tokusa asked, “So, how upset are you at me?”

“I’m not upset,” she said, looking at her fingers as they pulled at the threads keeping the hem together.

“Anything I can do?”

Her fingers stopped, but she still didn’t look up at him. “You promise you won’t do that again?”

“Yes.”

Tokusa held his breath while he waited for her to finally look up at him. When she did, she was biting her lip as tears filled her eyes. “Okay then.” Before Tokusa could do anything other than stare, Tewaku pushed the blanket away and stood up so she could sit on the windowsill. “It was so hot in there,” she said, pressing herself against the window.

“Are you okay?” Tokusa asked as he pulled the blanket closer, hoping if he was warm enough, he might forget how painful it was to watch her cry.

The window fogged up slightly as she sighed against it. “I just… I just can’t lose someone else I love.”

Tokusa realized what she meant about it being too hot. The blanket slipped out of his now sweaty hands, but that didn’t help the way his heart was racing. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, trying to remember how to talk, how to move, how to get enough air to talk. Eventually, he found himself able to say, “In all the time you’ve known me, have I ever not come back to you and Madarao?”

When she looked at him, he was hoping those were the beginnings of a smile on her face and not his wishful thinking. “No.”

“And that’s never going to change.” Though he was starting to feel the cold setting in again, he joined her on the windowsill. The way the cold seeped through his clothes left him shivering, but Tewaku’s smile kept him warm. “So, you’re okay?”

She nodded. “I am.”

Without another word, they went back to looking up at the sky, ignoring the reflection of the lights in the window. It took a moment for Tokusa to focus his eyes enough to see it, but he was sure he saw snowflakes falling from the clouds.

“It’s snowing,” Tewaku said, opening the window.

Without the glare from the glass, it was much easier to see the snow falling. Although, Tokusa could have done without the cold air burning his lungs and feeling like it was reaching all the way to his bones.

“Let’s go outside,” Tewaku said, looking at him with a childish grin. It was so simple, so sweet.

“Okay.” Before they left, Tokusa made sure to grab his jacket and think warm thoughts. Thoughts about sunshine, Tewaku’s smile, the way Madarao had gently grabbed his wrist at the hospital, the heater at Tyki’s house, the hug Reni had given him, and his date with Link.

* * *

 

When the doorbell rang, Tokusa was on his way to the kitchen to eat breakfast. Without thinking about what time it could be, he took a few steps back and opened the door. His hand tightened around the doorknob as he tried not to slam it closed.

Although, with that nervous smile Link was offering him, Tokusa found it easy to loosen his grip and smile back. After all, the warmth from Link’s eyes blocked out the cold from the winter air slipping in through the open door.

“Did you just wake up?” Link asked, still standing in front of the door. Hovering, like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to come in.

“Uh, yeah, kind of. I’ve been awake for a little bit.” Before Tokusa continued, he let Link in. “I didn’t realize what time it was.” As Tokusa locked the door, it unlocked beneath his fingers. Before he could go tell Reni that the lock was possessed, the door opened and Tokusa darted out of the way so it wouldn’t hit him.

“Reni,” Bak yelled, waltzing in like he owned the place.

He was followed in by Tokusa’s math teacher, Komui, who was kind enough to close the door.

Bak took in a deep breath, but before he could yell again, Reni dashed into the room from the direction of the kitchen and placed her hand over Bak’s mouth. “What?” she asked, looking more exasperated than Tokusa had ever seen her. And then she grimaced and pulled her hand away.

When she wiped her hand in Bak’s hair, he ducked out of the way and batted at her hand. “Gross, I don’t want my spit in my hair.”

“Well, I don’t want it on my hand,” she said, finishing wiping her hand on the sleeve of his shirt. There was something so immature about the way she was talking, but despite that, there was still a gentleness in her hand movements.

“Funny how even doctors can act like children sometimes,” Komui said.

It took Tokusa a moment to process that his trigonometry teacher was standing in his house, watching his mom rub her childhood friend’s spit in his hair, and attempting to have a casual conversation with him. When he did, he was fairly certain he mumbled something before pulling Link into his room, but only after he closed the door did he realize what he’d done.

“I brought the notes,” Link said, feet shuffling against the ground hesitantly.

When Tokusa turned around, he was holding out a notebook that was sitting on top of a plastic container. “Thanks,” Tokusa said, taking the notes. The paper was still cold from being outside and so was the rough top of the container where Tokusa’s hand had brushed it. While he looked over the tiny script filling the multitude of pages, he somehow ended up asking, “Is that for me?”

“Yes,” Link answered without pause and Tokusa did his best not to look like he found it easier to breathe.

“You really did take a lot of notes,” Tokusa said, looking up so he could smile at Link.

But, he found him nodding nervously like he was being assessed. “I read a lot.”

As Tokusa’s smile widened, he felt his teeth catch against his lip. “I know.” Of course, he knew. Only, hearing Link say that reminded him of cold nights when he could watch the warming glow of the flashlight he had stolen drag along the pages of some book Link had managed to get his hands on.

“Right,” Link said, his fingers fumbling with the lid of the container. When he got it open, he held it out for Tokusa. “Scone?”

The first thing Tokusa smelled was a sweet combination of lemon and blueberry and his mouth watered. After he swallowed, he took one of the scones. “Thanks.” As he took the first bite, he noticed the expectant look on Link’s face. Although he was far too nervous to taste it or do anything but chew it and swallow it down past the lump forming in his throat, he said, “Tastes great.”

Link smiled, softer this time. “I’m glad. These are all for you. Well, and Tewaku, Madarao, and Reni.”

“Don’t you know,” Tokusa said, walking past Link, “that when you give someone your notes, they’re supposed to do something for you?” After he placed the notes with the rest of his school things, he turned around and found Link forcing the lid back on the scones.

“It’s a thank you for the flashlight.” When Tokusa didn’t say anything, too stunned that Link remembered something that Tokusa thought would have been simple for someone of his upbringing, Link joined him and placed the container of scones in his free hand. “I returned it, by the way. I hope you don’t mind.”

It wasn’t a surprise to Tokusa that Link had returned the flashlight given the way he had looked at it like it frightened him. Though, he had taken it with a smile so unassuming that, for an instant, Tokusa was so vulnerable that he fell in love. Somehow, the scones ended up slipping from his hands as he realized that.

When Link went to pick up the scones, Tokusa did the only thing he could think of to stop himself from rebuilding his wall out of something stronger than sarcasm; he kissed Link.

For a moment, he considered pulling away because Link stiffened against him, but then Link relaxed, though he didn’t do anything else. That was when Tokusa realized that Link hadn’t kissed anyone and he had no idea what to do. Not that Tokusa did at first either.

As he gently coaxed Link into kissing him back and threaded his fingers into the base of Link’s braid, he felt how much easier it was to kiss Link for the first time than it had been with Madarao. Not only because he’d been doing it for longer, but because there was something about the way his heart was racing, the curl of Link’s fingers into his shirt, how natural it all felt. If he could have, he was sure he would have done it until his mouth was dry and his tongue hurt, but someone opened his door and Link created distance between them before Tokusa could register what was going on.

“Oh, sorry,” Reni said, offering them an apologetic smile. “I was just checking on you, but it looks like you’re doing okay.”

After she closed the door, Tokusa laughed even though he was still struggling to get enough air in his lungs while his heart was beating so rapidly.

“Why are you laughing?” Link asked, a blush on his cheeks and a worried look in his eyes.

As Tokusa calmed himself down and managed to take in a full breath, he wiped the combination of his and Link’s spit from his lips with swipes of his fingers. “Because that’s not really how I expect a mom to react.” Tokusa picked up the scone sitting on his floor, but left the container, and said, “But, I guess it’s Reni, so it makes sense.” He went over to the door so he could go to the kitchen to throw the scone away, but when he opened the door, Madarao walked past him and took it. “That was on the floor,” Tokusa said, watching him walk away and take a bite of it.

“Don’t care,” Madarao responded without stopping. At the end of the hall, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Change your shirt already,” he said, leaving without giving Tokusa a chance to respond.

In all the excitement, Tokusa had forgotten that he was still wearing Tyki’s shirt and he hadn’t fixed his hair yet. As he kicked the door closed with his foot, he took his shirt off. He threw it on the floor in front of his closet and grabbed the first shirt his fingers landed on before putting it on. When he turned around, Link was staring at his shoes. “Madarao likes your scones so much that he didn’t care that it was on the floor.”

Link looked up at him, a hint of pride brightening his smile and Tokusa wondered if for the rest of his life, Link would somehow constantly manage to remind Tokusa that he was in love.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


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